


Finding the Flow

by Luana Araceli (Luana_Araceli)



Category: Original Work
Genre: BDSM, BDSM Universe, Dom/sub, Dominance, Gaming, M/M, Original Characters - Freeform, Original Story - Freeform, Power Dynamics, Submission, Total Power Exchange, bdsm world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 19:52:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11835867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luana_Araceli/pseuds/Luana%20Araceli





	Finding the Flow

Tyler sat in the back of the classroom, sketching a flow chart for one of the video games he had created. Some players had complained about the lack of a real world economy, so he was trying to figure out the best way to incorporate one without having to redo too much coding.

No one was paying any attention to him, which was normal. To his high school peers, he was the weird quiet kid whose parents had died in a fire. For a few months after the accident, there were rumors that he had been responsible. Since Tyler wasn’t the type to react to rumors, the rumor mill died down pretty quickly.

Still, it was difficult to force himself to attend school – for two reasons, really. The first was that he was rich – he had a video game empire of independent titles that could rival the larger game corporations. And he had his own team of programmers and designers, just with no central headquarters. The technological advantage of living in 3150 couldn’t be overstated, and Tyler was usually glad he’d been born in this century.

The only real difficulty of the 3150s was the discovery of dynasim and the new Spectrum science that identified everyone as either submissive or dominant.  It was Spectronics that really frustrated Tyler because the law kept him from claiming his true wealth. As a submissive, he was required to have a guardian, and only dominants could be guardians. All of his wealth was controlled by his aunt, and she had made attending high school a stipulation for access to his funds.

So, Tyler attended high school to keep his video game empire alive, but he didn’t try to make friends. Instead, he sat in the back of every class, working on his code. He made sure to keep his grades up – another stipulation of his financial guardian. But teachers didn’t bother calling on him in class; everyone left him alone, for the most part.

Some days, though, his classmates would try to get a response out of him.  Tyler usually ignored them –he’d learned that if he ignored people long enough, they would eventually lose interest and leave him alone. He just had zero interest in the childish games his peers seemed to enjoy. All he wanted to do was code his games.

He surveyed his flow chart with a critical eye. Satisfied, he closed his sketch pad and stood up. He never asked to be excused – if you needed the bathroom, you needed the bathroom. Teachers had long ago given up on trying to stop him from leaving the room.

When Tyler returned to the classroom, his sketchpad was missing from his desk. The light snickers coming from a group near the front of the room told him instantly who had taken his pad. While he’d been gone, classes had changed, so no teacher was present – the next class didn’t start for another ten minutes. Tyler sighed and sat down. He was non-confrontational by nature, so he lamented the fact that he was going to have to redo his flow chart, and annoyed that his peers had stooped low enough to steal his stuff, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it.

But it was starting to look like he didn’t need to. Matt had just entered the classroom, and while he was known as the biggest player in school, it was also known that he didn’t tolerate the mistreatment of submissives. And he made a beeline straight to the sniggering group. “What is that?” he demanded, his voice cool.

“Just a sketch pad,” Carrie said. “We wanted to see what Tyler draws every day.” While Carrie was also a dominant, she was notorious for her nasty attitude towards subs. She was one of those dominants who thought submissives were property rather than individual people with their own personalities.

Matt raised an eyebrow and turned to Tyler. “Did she ask if she could see the sketchpad, Ty, or did she just take it from you?”

Tyler winced. He hated being called Ty. His parents had been the only ones who called him Ty, and hearing the nickname was a keen reminder of his loss. “No,” he said, voice soft. “She didn’t ask.”

Matt turned back to Carrie. “I suggest you return his things,” he said, the threat clear in his tone. 

If she didn’t return his stuff, he was saying, then he was willing to turn things physical. The idea that a woman should never be hit by a man was outdated in the 3150s, having been replaced by the idea that a submissive should never be abused by a dominant.

Carrie snorted. “Whatever. It’s just a sketchpad.” She handed it up to Matt, clearly unimpressed by his display.

Matt took the sketchpad out of her hands and walked to where Tyler sat. He laid the sketchpad down on Tyler’s desk, then slid into the seat next to him. “Mind if I sit here?” he asked. “I don’t want them getting any more clever ideas.”

Tyler shrugged and pulled his sketchpad to him. Truthfully, he didn’t care where Matt sat. He didn’t care about any of his peers – they weren’t his equals. The only people he considered his equals were his video game team. His team consisted of the only friends he would ever need, so he didn’t know what Matt thought to gain by sitting beside him.

Matt sighed. “Do you mind or not?” he asked. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

That startled Tyler’s attention away from his sketchpad. “I don’t care where you sit,” he said. Matt’s words had unsettled him, though. None of his peers had ever expressed an interest in his comfort before.

“Awesome,” Matt said, and a smile stretched across his face, accentuating his deep green eyes. 

“Can I ask what you’re working on?”

Tyler hesitated. He didn’t share his work with anyone but his team, but he had also never been approached by anyone in his class before. He’d never even considered the possibility of making a friend outside the gaming world, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to Matt.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Matt said. “I can understand if you don’t, considering how Carrie acted.”

“It’s not that,” Tyler said. “I’m not used to people talking to me.”

Matt’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Really? I mean, I know you’ve always been quiet in class, but I thought that was just because you hated school.”

Tyler gave him a small smile. “I don’t hate school,” he said. And that was true. He didn’t hate learning – he just hated being around people who were never going to be able to accept him for who he was. He hated that he had been born a submissive and was subject to laws that no dominant would ever have to worry about.

Matt frowned at him. “If you don’t hate school, then why are you always drawing?” he asked.

Tyler shrugged. “I make video games. These are sketches of flow charts and other design concepts. I don’t pay attention in class because I already know the material.” And now he felt self-conscious. How was Matt going to take that? Tyler knew that it might sound like bragging, but he was just being honest. Was it okay to be honest with real world people? He didn’t know, and he didn’t like the feeling of being uncertain. That was the main reason he didn’t socially engage with people who weren’t gamers.

Matt tilted his head at an angle, his dark brown bangs falling into his face and covering his right eye. He batted the bangs away before he spoke. “That’s kind of incredible,” he said, the pitch of his tone conveying how impressed he was. “Why don’t you take the system exams?”

The system exams were designed for fast-track students who were smart enough that they didn’t really need to go through the full twelve years of formal education. Tyler had mentioned them to his aunt occasionally, but she wouldn’t hear of him trying to “cheat” his way out of school. “My aunt won’t let me,” he said.

“That must suck,” Matt said.

Tyler shrugged. “It does, but I can’t do anything about it.” He didn’t let the bitterness he felt about the unfair guardianship laws bleed through – that was none of Matt’s business. That was no one’s business but his own, for that matter.

“Do you want to hang out after school?” Matt asked.

The question surprised Tyler. Why would Matt want to hang out with him? They barely knew each other. He turned the question over in his mind. He knew that Matt had a reputation as a player, so it was possible that this was just an attempt to get him into bed, but Matt was also nice. 

And Matt was the first person who had ever asked him to hang out. “Sure,” he said.

“Awesome,” Matt said, smiling at him. “Any particular place you’d like to go?”

Tyler raised an eyebrow.  _ Shouldn’t that be obvious?  _ That was the question he wanted to ask, but he had to remind himself that Matt didn’t know him the way his team knew him. “The arcade,” he said.

Matt looked at him in surprise, then shook his head. “I guess I should have known that a man that designs games would want to go to place where he could play them.”

Tyler smirked at him, suddenly feeling brave. His heart started to beat a little faster, and he started to wonder what it would be like if he actually managed to make friends with Matt. And, in the back of his mind, an even smaller part of him wondered if Matt had asked him to hang out because he thought Tyler was attractive.  _ Well, _ he thought.  _ Only one way to find out. _

*********

After school ended, Matt walked with Tyler to the front of the building. “Did you drive?” Matt asked.

Tyler shook his head, then thought maybe he better elaborate. He wasn’t sure how people did this hanging out thing, really, but talking was probably a big part of it. “My aunt doesn’t think teenagers should have cars, so she drives me to school.”

“Your aunt sounds pretty strict,” Matt said.

Tyler shrugged. “She’s a better guardian than the state-appointed one I had to deal with after the fire.”

Matt winced. “I didn’t mean to make you bring up something painful.”

Tyler waved his hand, dismissing Matt’s concern. “The fire happened when I was eight,” he said. 

“I don’t really remember much about my parents, so I don’t have trouble talking about it.”

“Okay,” Matt said. “But please don’t feel like you have to talk to me about anything you don’t want to talk about.”

Tyler gave him a small smile.

“So, if you don’t have a car, I guess that means we’re taking mine. Unless you want to walk?” 

Matt asked, and the sudden uncertainty in his tone allowed Tyler to fully relax. Matt was just as nervous here as he was.

“I’d rather not walk five miles to the arcade,” Tyler said. “So, my vote’s for the car.”

Matt smiled, and the relief showed in every line of his face. This was not a guy capable of hiding his emotions. “Awesome,” he said.

Tyler snorted in amusement. “That must be your favorite word,” he said. “I think I’ve heard you use it ten times today.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I like the word. I can express so much with so little effort. Now, let’s go play some games.”

Tyler grinned. “Sounds like my kind of date.” Oops. He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t meant to imply that this was a date, but he couldn’t take his words back now.

Matt laughed. “If only all my dates were so easy to please,” he said.

Oh. Good. Tyler felt himself relax. Matt was taking it the way it had been meant – as a joke, not a serious comment. Tyler usually felt uncomfortable around people at school because he never knew how smart they were. He never knew if they would understand him, so he just opted out entirely. But it seemed Matt was one of the smart ones, so Tyler wasn’t going to have to worry so much about watching what he said. That helped him truly relax. Watching what he said was tiring, so it was a relief to feel like he could just be himself.

“So,” Matt said. “What kind of video games do you like to play?”

Tyler shrugged. “All of them, I guess. I design all types of games, so I tend to play tons of different genres.”

“Don’t you have favorites?” Matt asked.

Tyler considered the question seriously. “I like different aspects of every genre. I enjoy the variety that rpgs offer, but I also like the competitiveness of fps games. I enjoy the mental stimulation offered by puzzle and strategy games, and I like the easy adaptability of arcade games.”

Matt laughed. “So you’re saying that every genre is your favorite genre.”

Tyler flushed. “Essentially, yes.”

“That’s pretty awe-“ He caught himself. “That’s incredible,” he said instead, turning his head to smirk a little at Tyler. “See? I know other words.”

Despite himself, Tyler chuckled. “Good,” he said. “I was worried you might turn out to be a one-button robot.”

“Nope, I’m multi-functional,” Matt said, giving Tyler a wicked smirk.

Tyler full-out laughed at that. “I can’t believe you just quoted a dildo commercial at me,” he said.

Matt grinned. “You’re the one that brought up buttons.”

“I didn’t think your mind was going to leap straight to dildos! Especially when we were talking about games.”

“Well,” Matt said. “There are sex games, too. You never said how you felt about those.”

Tyler felt his face heat because he knew that Matt had just crossed the line from casual flirting to serious flirting. “I’ve never played any,” he said, responding in the same tone. “But I don’t think I’d be opposed to them.”

Matt smiled. “Let’s leave that topic for a future date, then, shall we? After all, we have arrived at our arcade.”

Tyler nodded, not mentioning the flutter of hope that had started in the middle of his chest. Did this mean that Matt might actually like him? He wasn’t sure he could trust that hope, though. After all, Matt was a known player – what if Matt was just going to woo him and then leave him? Was letting Matt in still worth doing? Tyler didn’t know the answer to that question, and he suspected he wouldn’t for a long time. So he put it out of his mind and followed Matt into the arcade.

Once they were inside the arcade, Matt paid for two passes and handed one to Tyler. “I put fifty on each. Think that’s enough?”

“More than enough,” Tyler said, trying not to let Matt see how impressed he was and failing. “I’ll have to pay you back tomorrow, though. I didn’t bring that much with me.” 

Matt shook his head. “Ty, don’t you get it yet?” he asked. “We’re on a date. That means you don’t have to pay me back.”

Tyler winced. “If we’re on a date,” he said. “Don’t call me Ty. I hate it.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. “Why?” he asked, following Tyler over to the VR sims.

“Because my parents were the last ones who called me Ty, and I don’t want anyone who isn’t as close to me as them using that nickname.”

Matt nodded. “Do you think there’s a possibility that we might ever be that close someday?” he asked. There was an undercurrent of sadness in his tone that Tyler hadn’t been expecting to hear.

Tyler shrugged. “Maybe,” he said.

“Maybe works for me,” Matt said. “For now, let’s see which of us can take the best shot.”

“You’re on,” Tyler said, and he donned his VR helmet. He adjusted the controls to allow Matt to sync with his simulation, then plugged in the information to access the most popular fps of the 3150s, Dynamics Gone Deadly. The storyline was terrible, and the design was rough. Tyler might not know much about people or dating, but he knew enough not to start talking to non-designers about game design.

Tyler chose a submissive male character. Under the law, he was restricted to playing submissive roles in video games. All game designs had to incorporate Spectron dynamics, and VR sim identities had to be registered through proper channels. A submissive couldn’t play anything but a submissive in a VR game, and that was both frustrating and insulting. The same was true for dominants, though, so it was at least relatively fair. The inequality was in the roles the story provided for them.

In Dynamics Gone Deadly, the story was about a group of renegades who had rejected the law and had essentially become a terrorist group. As a player of the game, the job was to stop the renegades. When a dominant and submissive played together, the dominant had to take on the role of protector while the submissive was expected to defend themselves only if their dominants were out of commission. It was a farce of a game, but Tyler felt that if he saw how Matt responded to playing it, then he would have learned something vital about the man who was trying to charm him.

Matt stepped up beside him in the sim and wrinkled his nose. “DGD, really? I thought you’d be into games with a little more pizazz than this one.”

Tyler laughed. “I am. But I don’t know how good of a gamer you are, so I figured DGD was a safe place to start.”

Matt almost looked offended, but then he looked thoughtful. “DGD isn’t a beginner’s game.”

“No,” Tyler said. “I got the impression that you weren’t a beginner from the way you challenged me before we entered VR.”

Matt nodded, accepting that response. “I’m not a beginner, but I don’t like DGD. Will one round give you enough information about what kind of gamer I am?”

“Yes,” Tyler said, eager to get the displeasure off Matt’s face. Even though he wanted to ease Matt’s obvious discomfort, Tyler also wanted to see how Matt reacted during a round of the game. He wasn’t sure what it would tell him about Matt, but it seemed incredibly important to him to gather that data.

“Okay,” Matt said. “One round, then we move on to something less barbaric.”

Tyler raised an eyebrow. “How is DGD barbaric? Old-fashioned, maybe, but I’ve never considered it barbaric.”

Matt snorted. “Dominants should protect submissives – that much of the storyline, I’ll give the creators of DGD some credit for coming up with. But submissives shouldn’t have to wait for their dominants to be out of commission before fighting the renegades. In a real world situation, I’d expect my submissive to have my back just as much as I had theirs.”

That was when the round started, but Tyler had found his answer. Matt was a weird mix of traditional and progressive, and that was something that he could live with. Respect, even. Then bullets started whizzing around his head, and Tyler stopped thinking about anything at all except how to evade capture by the renegades while Matt worked to fend them off.

When the round ended, Matt cleared DGD from the VR screen in the sim and turned to Tyler. “Did you get the information you needed?” he asked. There was no accusation in his tone, just curiosity, and Tyler felt his heartbeat return to normal.

“Yes,” Tyler said. “I learned that you are a terrible shooter.” He grinned as he said it, trying to relieve the sting of the insult. “How many times did you die again?” he asked. “Fifteen? Twenty?”

Matt snorted. “Yes, well, I told you I don’t like DGD. We still won, though.”

Tyler grinned. In DGD, there were always two teams pitted against one another, and the goal was to see which team could kill the most renegades within a fifteen minute window. “Yes, but we only won because the other team was absolutely terrible. I think the Dom may have been a beginner.”

Matt growled at Tyler, but the sound was playful. “It’s a good thing I like a little cheekiness in subs,” he said.

Tyler grew still, lost in thought. “Earlier, you said that you’d want a sub to defend you to the same extent that you would defend them,” he said. “Have you ever had a sub like that?”

Matt considered the question seriously. “No,” he said. “But I’ve had a lot of subs who have failed to live up to my expectations.”

Tyler knew he was taking a chance, but he felt that he had to ask the question. “Is that why you have a reputation around school for being a player?”

The corners around Matt’s eyes tightened and his lips firmed. “I don’t appreciate being called that,” he said.

Tyler dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I didn’t call you anything, Matt,” he said. He felt that he needed to point that out before a misunderstanding occurred. “I simply asked about your reputation.”

Matt sighed. “Yes,” he said, his tone clipped. “I have taken a lot of submissives on dates. I’ve even taken subs on multiple dates. But it usually gets to a point where our ideas or our dynamics clash so badly that pretending to make it as a couple would just end up with both of us getting hurt. I refuse to hurt someone else that way, and I have no intentions of allowing anyone to hurt me that way.”

Tyler nodded thoughtfully. “I can see why that would net you the reputation you have around school,” he said. He purposefully didn’t point out that he’d heard the inflection in Matt’s tone when Matt had mentioned not hurting someone else. There was an implication there that Matt had hurt someone else before, and Tyler didn’t think it would be a very smart move to bring it up.

Matt sighed. “I suppose that means you want to end our date?”

Tyler frowned at him, puzzled. “Why?”

“Because you obviously think that I’m a player,” Matt said.

Oh. Wow. Tyler swallowed against the lump of emotion in his throat. Of all the things he had expected from Matt, he hadn’t expected the guy to be sensitive. At least, not to this extent. “No,” he said.

“What?” Matt asked.

“No,” Tyler said again. “I don’t want to end our date. Not when I’m enjoying myself.”

Matt gave him a cautious, curious – weighted – look. “You don’t care that I have a reputation as a player?”

Tyler shrugged. “I don’t think that a person is defined by their reputation. I’ll determine for myself whether or not that reputation is warranted, and I’ll thank you not to make up my mind for me.”

Matt grinned at him, ignoring the pointed barb Tyler had driven home. “I think that I can work with that,” he said. “Now, why don’t we play something a little more entertaining than DGD? I was thinking a round of Guess the Dynamic might be fun.”

Tyler groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys.” Guess the Dynamic was a popular game in which people guessed the dynamics of various celebrities. It was pop culture tripe, and it was the one kind of game Tyler hated.

Matt smirked. “I thought you said you liked all games,” he said. “I see I’ve found your weak spot.”

Tyler sighed. “Fine,” he said. “One round. And only because you agreed to a round of DGD which you obviously hate.”

“That’s fine,” Matt said. “As long as we’re being fair.”

Tyler rolled his eyes. When he had gotten out of bed this morning, the last place he’d ever expected to wind up was in the arcade playing a round of Guess the Dynamic with Matt. Maybe there was some truth to the old saw that anything was possible. Maybe. He still wasn’t quite sure he believed that he was on a date with Matt and not having some sort of vivid hallucination. 

 


End file.
